POLICE have revealed how they snared a bungling burglar – by following his paint prints after he accidentally covered himself in emulsion.

The 19-year-old had forced open a back door at the house in Humber Road, Stoke, Coventry – just yards from his home address – on the morning of June 21.

He made off with a flat-screen television, electrical items and a mountain bike.

He then returned in the hope of wheeling away a motorbike from the back garden – but in the process knocked over a tin of paint which alerted the people inside to the thefts.

One of two brothers at the house spotted the man disappearing down an alleyway, phoned police, and minutes later officers tracked the paint-daubed thief to a nearby house.

And at Coventry Crown Court last week the thief, who admitted the break-in, was jailed for a total of 14 months. Of those 12 months were for burglary charge and two months for assaulting one of the brothers who confronted him.